And a very happy first day of summer, that sweetest time of the year when the day is at its longest. June 21 is also the anniversary of my mother’s birthday. No wonder we called her “La Reine de Juin.” She would have been 77.

From demilked: Portraits of grandmothers from around the world and the food they love to cook.

From the Portland Press Herald: Strawberries are here! While strawberry shortcake is hard to beat, the Press Herald offers a few other strawberry recipes.

From the New York Times: Shannon, this piece about sticky rice is for you. I know how much you love it.

From the LA Weekly: Love food? Love rock ‘n roll? These podcasts are for you.

From Henbogle: Look at all the great things Ali is growing in her in-town yard.

From Washington University: The world population could reach 11 billion by 2100. As someone who cares about hunger and food security, I certainly hope this prediction is wrong.

Last Saturday, when we went for our morning bike ride, my husband, Clif, and I stopped by the Farmers’ Market in Winthrop. Our own Farmer Kev was there, and we wanted to say hi to him as well as talk to some other friends who were at the market. In the process, I received a dinner invitation for next Wednesday.  A nice reminder that farmers’ markets not only feed the body, but they also provide a place where folks can gather, talk, and make plans.

It has been a long time since I’ve posted a Friday round-up of links, and I decided it was time to start doing it again. I love reading other bloggers’ Internet links, and I look forward to their monthly or weekly round-ups. There are so many interesting pieces on the web.

From Jalopnik Detroit: Aaron Foley’s even-handed take on the new Whole Foods opening in Detroit.

From NPR’s the salt: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? This might be an irrelevant question if Beyond Eggs catches on. “It’s made from bits of ground-up peas, sorghum and a few other ingredients…” According to Allison Aubrey, cookies made with Beyond Eggs taste exactly the same as cookies made with real eggs. Nevertheless, egg lovers—and I count myself as one of them—will have mixed feelings about this development.

On a similar note, from the Guardian: A group of MPs urge the British public to eat less meat for greater food security. As readers well know, it takes a lot of resources and energy to produce meat.

From Climate Progress: Americans throw out 40 percent of their food. This is bad for the environment and the budget. Come on! Eat those leftovers and those veggies in the back of the refrigerator.

From the Portland Press Herald: To go along with the meatless theme, here is Jeff Peterson’s recipe for lentil tacos. They sound so good that I’ll be making them next week.

From Craftivist in the Kitchen: fish chowdah for 85

This week is pretty much going to be a Winthrop Food Pantry week on the blog. Lately, there’s been a lot happening at both our food pantry and in the larger world of organizations dedicated to feeding people.

I’ve been volunteering at the Winthrop Food Pantry since 1997, a long time. Over the years, I’ve seen a change in directors; a change in the amount of food—much less—available at the Good Shepherd Food Bank; and a change in the number of people—it has almost doubled—coming to our food pantry. Right now times are hard in Maine, as they are in the rest of the country. With chains and big-box stores being the primary employers in the state, it has become increasingly difficult to find employment that offers steady hours, good pay, and benefits such as health care. People, being resourceful, manage to cobble together a life, but for those who earn low wages, there is the constant stress of worrying about how to make ends meet, and it shows on the tired faces of so many of the recipients who come to the food pantry.

Winthrop is a very middle-class community, but it is a generous one, and the food pantry gets enough in donations so that it can pay the bills and buy food. (The food pantry also serves the community of Wayne, which is much smaller than Winthrop.) Last Saturday, there was an open house at the Winthrop Food Pantry for our donors. The trusty band of food pantry volunteers provided plenty of good food, and tours were given. About 10 people came, and they were impressed with how neat and clean and organized the pantry is. They were also impressed with the selection of food on the shelves. As my husband, Clif, noted, even if only a 10 people came to the event, the word will get out, and perhaps next year more people will come.

In the meantime, the volunteers at the Winthrop Food Pantry will continue to do what they have done for years and years. They will get food and stock shelves and take people around and package food and make Winthrop and Wayne more food secure for many families.

The title of this blog says it all. Five minutes ago, Farmer Kev delivered two huge bags of spinach and lettuce. For the past week, I have been craving those greens, and now they are here. Let the salads begin!

Today is a sunny Monday, and the forecast for the rest of the week is rain, rain, rain. I have a lot to write about—especially about the Winthrop Food Pantry and a conference I went to—but today I’m going to focus on outside work. There will be plenty of time later this week to write about the conference, which was very good and raised some interesting points.

It will also be a good week for Crock-Pot meals—a carrot soup of some kind and perhaps another round of sweet potatoes cooked with chicken.

In the meantime, there is laundry to be hung, gardens to be fed, lawns to be mowed, and a dog to be washed. And “flowers” to be sent to one of my favorite college graduates. (A packet of cards with pictures of flowers, mostly from my garden.)

A sunny Monday to you all!

Today, this Tuesday after Memorial Day Weekend, is a sunny, busy day with lots of outdoor chores as well as a bike trip to the library to do some volunteer work. Over the weekend, we had an indoor picnic, which I’ll write more about tomorrow, when the weather is supposed to be rainy again.

For today, I’ll keep the post short, with some pictures of the yard in May. Oh, spring is galloping right along. As I wrote on my friend Claire’s Facebook page: “I love spring, too, but I always want to say, ‘Wait, wait! Don’t go by so fast. Take your time turning to summer.’ But, of course, spring doesn’t wait. She rushes headlong into summer.”

For the past week, it has pretty much been nothing but rain in central Maine. While everything is as lush and as green as a rainforest, all this wet weather makes it hard to do any amount of gardening. I have managed to plant some annuals in pots, and I am keeping my fingers crossed that the rain doesn’t go on long enough to rot my little beauties.

My husband, Clif, and I had hoped to host a barbecue on Sunday, but now it looks as though our friends will be coming to an indoor event. We had planned to serve Clif’s renowned grilled bread, but if the rain continues as forecasted, then we will offer my legendary homemade crackers. (“Legendary” was coined by Kathy Gillis-Soltan, who works on the library expansion committee with me. I brought the crackers to one of our events.) Good though the crackers are, they really can’t compete with grilled bread, and I expect there will be some minor disappointment on Sunday. We were also going to have hamburgers, hot dogs, and black bean burgers, but that, too, has been changed. I’m sticking with the black bean burgers, which are best panfried, but instead of hot dogs and hamburgers, I’ve come up with a Mexican dish that can be baked. The Mexican dish has hamburg, refried beans, cheese, and spices. Naturally, there are tortilla chips to go along with it.

So, a changed menu unless Sunday is sunny and warm, and indoors rather than outdoors. No matter. Mike, Shannon, Sybil, Diane, Joel, Alice, Clif, and I will still have a great time eating and chatting.

And despite the festive nature of this weekend, I will remember the dead—family and friends who are no longer with us: Mom, Dad, Barbara, my grandmother, Ethel, Garry, Aunt Barney, and Uncle Leo. I’ll be making my mother’s gingersnaps to go along with the delectable flan that Sybil has offered to bring. As I’ve noted before, in our family, Mom’s gingersnaps were as legendary as my crackers, and they are a way to honor all those who have passed and who are very much missed.

To end on an upbeat note: If the Mexican casserole turns out as well as I hope it does, then I will share the recipe next week.

Tomorrow, I’ll be going to Damariscotta to a gathering of Franco-American artists. There will be at least 40 of us, a reflection of the large population of Franco-Americans that came from Canada to settle in New England and beyond.

I will be reading several posts from A Good Eater, two that touch on some aspect of being Franco-American and one that is a tribute to my mother, who didn’t speak English until she was 5. I’ll be making a double batch of my mother’s legendary ginger snaps to share, and I will also be bringing copies of her recipe.

The title of this blog comes from my mother and her appreciation of someone who was “a good eater.” My mother loved to feed people, and one of the most insulting things you could do was not be a good eater at her table. To her, it felt like a slap in the face if you halfheartedly picked at the food she cooked. Conversely, nothing made her happier than to cook for someone who ate with gusto.  If you asked for seconds, well, then you had won her heart. We associate this obsession with feeding people to certain ethnic groups, and Franco-Americans mothers can take their place beside Jewish, Italian, and Chinese mothers who like nothing better than having good eaters at their tables.

I would not call A Good Eater a Franco-American blog. Instead, it is a blog written by a Franco-American. In other words, being Franco-American is the place where I start rather than my destination. Yet, part of what I want to do with this blog is to show how a life lived close to home, a life that revolves around food, family, and friends, is a rich and rewarding life. “Livin’ the good life,” as Ida LeClair (aka Susan Poulin) might say. And if that isn’t Franco-American, then I don’t know what is.